


god, don't leave me (i'll freeze)

by mbege



Series: elite character studies [1]
Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Season/Series 01, guzman tries to do the right thing, its hard for him and it sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-01 05:07:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16278302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mbege/pseuds/mbege
Summary: every time he cries, he feels his sister's name on his lips. every time he feels lonely, his finger ache for nadia. but for a rich boy, guzmán is getting used to never getting what he wants the most.





	god, don't leave me (i'll freeze)

**Author's Note:**

> slight trigger warning for canon-compliant suicidal ideation

i. 

he doesn't want to go back to school. his uniform hangs on the door, clean, and pressed. next to it is lucrecia's uniform, condition perfect for her first day back after her suspension. she lies next to him in his bed, her hair spread across his pillows, onto his shoulders. it is a vision most men would die for, and yet he would die to remove the image from the backs of his eyelids. 

his mother opens his door before knocking it, peering in on the two figures in his bed. she gives him a soft smile, no reprimands left in her. they don't discuss lu staying over like they don't discuss the fact that his mother still wears black every day, they don't discuss the liquor bottles strewn across guzmán's floor. instead, she simply whispers, "breakfast is nearly ready," and drifts away towards the kitchen.

guzmán has to look away, so he can pretend he doesn't notice her looking over towards his sister's empty bedroom. in the brief months of summer holidays, there hasn't been a single day that she hasn't done it.

he does it, too, when no one is watching. 

 

ii.

walking through the doors makes guzmán want to vomit. he grips at lu's hand, but she pulls her hand out of his grip to run over to carla, embracing her with a quiet squeal of glee, and leaving guzmán to fend for himself. he'd never had a problem with that before, but all the sudden the halls seem smaller, the walls closer. he can't make eye contact like he used to. he doesn't want to look at people and see them looking at him the way they did at the beginning of the summer, full of pity and grief. as if they knew grief as he does. 

he forces himself to scan the crowds, looking for two familiar faces, and instead, he sees  _her._

she's sat on the steps, a textbook unfurled across her lap despite the fact that they haven't had any classes yet. guzmán knows that his father won't retract their scholarships no matter what; they weren't based on merit, after all, but on how they would make him look. and beside's, nadia's never been in any trouble of falling behind. 

she must have felt him staring because she looks up, and for a second their eyes meet. the heat of the summer has added some color to her cheeks, and she looks just as radiant as ever, especially when her perfect face breaks into one of those soft, perfect smiles she seems to reserve just for him and he wants nothing more than to go to her. 

 _i won't even say hi_ , he had promised. guzmán nunier is a man of his word.

he looks away and desperately seeks lu, but she and carla have vanished. he turns abruptly in the other direction and pretends that he doesn't hear nadia calling his name.

he almost escapes, but she catches up to him, breathless as she cuts off his path. 

"guzmán," she starts, but all the sudden lu is there because she knows, she always knows, her jealousy the only feature stronger than her pride, and something in nadia's wide open expression hardens. guzmán looks away as he feels her searching his face before she scoffs and walks away. he feels lu plastering herself to his body contentedly. she's too close. he doesn't want her near him, wants to call out to nadia, he wants he wants he wants but nowadays all that guzmán wants is all he'll never have.

he turns to lu and lets her kiss him. she tastes like cherry wine and expensive lipstick, and he tries to let the strong flavour of her lips distract him from the fact that he never tasted nadia's.

 

iii. 

marina's locker isn't assigned to an incoming student, like is the procedure for those who leave. instead, it's vacant, and everyone who ever interacted with her seems to have put something in or around it. it's a shrine. he finds himself stopped still in the middle of the hall, staring at a hundred versions of her radiant smile nearly blinding him.

 _where were all these people when she was alive,_ he wonders, remembering how often she had eaten alone. part of him hates the display, a symbol that he never knew all of marina, that there were parts of her and her life that he would never be privy to. but he sees all those pictures of her smile, all those outpourings of love, and his heart aches. his eyes grow hot, and he all but runs to his classroom. 

lu corners him in that same hallway, on his way to his next class. she presses her body against his, practically purring in his ear. for a millisecond, he almost waits for marina to round the corner, coming to get a pencil or something else she left in her locker and roll her eyes, but he knows she won't. ever again. he pushes the thought from his head and kisses lu like he actually cares about her. 

it isn't until she starts kissing down his neck and trying to work her hand into his pants that he remembers how much she loves to fuck in public. he doesn't want a handjob in school, and something about her trying to turn him on next to the memorial for his dead sister makes him sick to his stomach. it's all he can do to not shove her violently away. instead, he grips her wrist firmly, moves it back up so it sits in between them.

"we can't," he reprimands quietly, but lu only smirks, trying to lean toward him again. for someone who claims to love him, his boundaries and wishes have never seemed to concern her. he lets her kiss him, nonetheless. he can't afford to lose her. 

can he?

 

iv. 

he feels nadia's eyes on his back throughout all of their classes. he pretends to invest himself in all of the annual teacher-introduction and syllabus handouts that were customary to the first day of the school year and pretends he doesn't know she exists. 

his phone buzzes in his pocket. he ignores it until the teacher gives them a specific assignment to write down, and he feels nadia look away. he sneaks his phone out of his pocket.

 

_from: Nadia [10:45 AM]_

_why are you ignoring me?_

 

_from: Nadia [10:47 AM]_

_at least look at me_

 

he blocks her number and does his assignment. it's fine. it's fine. it's fine. 

 

v.

the house is not the same as it was. it looks identical to the way it did a year ago, but it is not the same. the air is too thin, but it is also too thick. it has been a long time since guzmán has been able to breathe.

he walks to his bedroom in a trance, and throws his book bag on his bed. his bag hits a stray wine bottle, an unopened gift from the marchioness to his parents, which falls onto the ground and shatters, the deep red liquid inside leaking across the ground, and against the tile it looks like blood seeping everywhere. he had seen that once before.

he can't tell how thin or thick the air is because it's smothering him, covering his mouth and nose, and his head is pounding and he can't breathe. he crashes against his bed, sliding against the wine-stained bloodstained floor, and he can't tell if it made noise because there is no one around to hear. he never lets himself break down when someone can hear, trying to be a strong man like his father taught. always quiet, always private. image is everything. sometimes we wonders: if he broke, would anyone hear?

he doesn't know, and his brain isn't getting enough oxygen to ponder it. he puts his head in between his knees and wait for the room to stop spinning. as soon as he can, he changes out of his school clothes and scrambles from the house, wandering aimlessly around the madrid streets. he doesn't know how long he's been wandering before he finds himself on a side of town that has never been his but he's come to know like the back of his hand. he weaves between vendor stalls and storefronts until he catches view of the only place he wants to be.

she's wearing the hijab he bought her, and ander's omar is putting something on shelves next to her. he watches as omar evidently says something funny, and her head tips back as she laughs, her smile so blinding and gorgeous that guzmán is forced to turn his head, his body, and walk away. although no sound from the store reached where he was across the street, nadia's laugh still echoes through his ears as he starts he trek home.

 

 vi.

his father isn't home for dinner. he rarely is, anymore, burying his guilt in his work parties and paperwork and anything other than the family that needs him. his mother still sets three places when they eat, and he isn't sure which one of the people who is never coming home she sets the place for. he wonders at what point she'll stop hoping.

part of him hopes it's soon, she he can stop the sudden pains in his chest whenever he sees their table set that way, but he remembers the first few weeks of summer when every night she woke up screaming crying, her eyes open but unseeing as she called his sister's name. he'll let her keep her hope if it means he'll never see that again.

(he had cried like that too, but no one was ever around to listen.)

 

vii.

his life becomes a familiar cycle. he goes to school. swims. hangs around ander and polo, though ander is slipping away into omar and polo never seems to want to meet his eyes anymore. some nights, lu occupies his bed. some nights, he sleeps alone.

for the first few weeks, nadia would try to talk to him. she would corner him between classes, asking him about his summer, if he was okay, knew he knew he could talk to her, right?

he knows he's making an ass of himself. he won't look her in the eye. he ducks into the men's room. he finds lu, kisses her, show her affection. he's using her, he knows, but she uses him just the same. 

after a while nadia backs off, but he still feels her staring at him in classes, in the halls. he caught her eyes once in a mirror, and the hurt in them filled him with a rush of guilt so strong it felt like fury. 

after a while, she stopped staring.

he was fine. it was for the best.

 

viii.

he had much more free time, now that he wasn't trying to force nadia to fall in love with him and he wasn't labored with watching marina. his homework was done practically when it was assigned. he swam for hours at a time, trying to force his own thoughts out of his head. he swims until his muscles ache, until his lips are far past blue. but even that can't force his mind to quiet, to stop wandering back into the past.

life was so much simpler when they were younger before either of the nunier siblings knew the weight of the family name. back when guzmán was built like a toothpick, body still adjusting to the growth spurts, when marina still wore bright colors and bright eyes because she had yet to learn that she wanted to be a rebel. they were happy, he thinks.

he remembers dancing with his sister in the harsh lighting of one of their father's many parties. she demanded to be the lead, adding some commentary about sexism that he didn't care enough to listen to, and she stood on a chair so she could twirl him once, twice, three times to the beat of the song, her birdlike laugh soaring above the music. 

his head was spinning spinning spinning and she wouldn't stop spinning spinning spinning him. "spare me, marina, have mercy!" he cried, nausea and hilarity intertwining so tightly that they may never be undone.

"oh, guzmán," marina promised, "how could i?"

 

ix. 

"go easy on yourself, guzmán," lu pleads quietly, soft knuckles working on the knot between his shoulder blades from swimming miles and miles past his breaking point, til he found himself nearly screaming from the ache. they are both pretending, he knows. she is pretending that she can fix him, that she loves him in the way she wants to. he is pretending he wants to be loved by her. pretending that there is anything left to fix.

to her credit, lu has looked after him like she promised she would, ever since she watched him nearly throw himself off the bridge. but there's a disconnect between them. she thinks she's in love with him, but all she loves is a trophy, and guzmán had always been happy to be a prize. 

guzmán smiles, but if lu cared enough to see how it barely made it past the corners of his mouth, much less to his eyes, she doesn't comment. god, she doesn't notice anything, does she? not like nadia could. would. did. 

"oh lu," he repeats, an echo of a better time, his voice empty, "how could i?"

 

x.

 

he's climbing out of the pool after a long swim when he finally sees her again. he's struggling to press himself out of the water, his arms shaking, and he's so focused on the task that he doesn't notice nadia's uniform-clad legs until he's crouched and panting poolside.

he tries to cut around her, a desperate grasp at his promise to her father, but she cuts him off. he looks over her shoulder at the door to the changing room, and wonders if he can make a break for it. she scoffs, and shoves him backwards lightly enough that if he wanted to, he could have stayed still. but he was weak, right now. always weak for nadia. he takes the step back. 

"guzmán..." nadia begins, and she gives him a pause to look down at her. he doesn't take it.

_i won't talk to her._

his silent refusal seems to strike a nerve. "cut the bullshit, guzmán!" nadia demands, her voice exasperated but shrill. guzmán prays that the pool is as empty as it seems, for anyone could clearly hear her voice if they listened. "god, i don't know what i did wrong. i just came to apologize. you don't have to forgive me, or even care about me, but show some decency. at least look at me!"

tears prick at his eyes. he doesn't have to care about her? doesn't she know that he's doing this for her? doesn't she see that this is killing him.

_we have no future together._

_i won't even say hi._

"guzmán, please," she pleads, and the pain in her voice is enough to go against his better judgement. his pride, his honor, everything that made him a nunier despite his dna begs him to uphold his promise to mr. shanaa. but he doesn't need to be a nunier if it hurts her this badly. he was only ever guzmán, cut and dry, for her.

he meets her eyes, and they're as misty as his own. the simple act of making eye contact seems to cause her to exhale a long breath that neither of them knew she was holding. 

"what... happened with us?" she asks him, so open and earnest that it destroys him. "i had to fight with my father to come back here, fight him to do it without conditions so i could speak with you and you ignore me? what did i do? if this is about marina, i understand, but i just- i-" and she stutters off, evidently silenced by the shocked look he can feel on his own face. 

"without conditions?" he asks incredulously, the weight of her words hitting him like a freight train. she nods cautiously, and guzmán feels himself come undone.

_i won't speak to her. i won't even say hi._

_without conditions so i could speak to you._

god, he feels like a monster.

he reaches across to her startled figure, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest. she's obviously startled, holding herself stock still before reaching around to grip him back, pulling them impossibly closer together. 

"you're wet," she criticizes, but there's no weight behind it. he laughs quietly, and lifts his head up to shake the water out of his hair and all over her. she squeals in laughter. 

when he finally pulls back he looks at her, really looks at her, for the first time since he lost his sister. god, she looks good.

"come to my house later, okay?" he asks, "i'll explain everything."

she smiles, and nods, and it can't possibly be this easy, can it? it can't be. but maybe it is.

he hugs her again, quick and close, and then heads towards the showers.

 

xi.

she doesn't come.

he waits at his house for hours. he sits by the door, the air even for once, and waits for her, and she doesn't come. 

he didn't think it was possible to break a broken heart, but here he sits.

 

xii.

he stays home from school the next day. he can't bear to face lu, or nadia, or any of those people. not today. the only thing he has to face is a bottle of whiskey, cuddled against his chest as he sits by the pool. he has his legs stuck in the water, and he's too drunk to realize that  his pants are still on, soaked through.

nadia didn't come. marina would never come again. abandonment was beginning to feel too much like home to him, infused into his breath since his birth parents. no one could ever love him. not even lu, no matter how much she wants to.

the afternoon heat overwhelms him a bit, so he drops the bottle on the pool deck and lowers himself, fully clothed, into the water. he remembers doing this with nadia not to long ago. it feels eons away, but it's been less than a year. his toes graze the bottom of the pool, the only thing keeping him in the present. 

he tries not to think about nadia, the pain too fresh, but the only time he isn't thinking about nadia is when he thinks about marina. he closes his eyes, and their faces glare behind his eyelids. nadia, ever sharp and exasperated, and marina, always so soft. his light. he is torn between them, torn in two. he is so hollow, that without their memories, he'll cease to exist.

he remembers the night he lost marina like it was yesterday. he remembers telling samu to let her go, that whatever she got was whatever she had coming. god, he was such an ass. nadia had been right, all those months ago in her parents' store. he was a bad person.

maybe marina was lucky. she was gone, she had moved on to a better place where she gets to be happy. and he has to stay here without her. he has to keep waking up every morning and go on being her brother, even if he doesn't have her as a sister anymore. 

he lays facedown in the water and inhales. he tries to force himself from coughing it back up. he doesn't even want to die, he doesn't think. he just wants to feel it in his lungs.

he hears the voice calling has name as if through water, even though his ears are still above the surface. he feels the water ripple around him rather than hearing the splash. but suddenly there are arms around his, pulling his head out of the water, pulling him to the side of the pool. suddenly, he remembers how to breath, vomiting the water back up, pushing himself out of the water to sputter against the deck. when he finally opens his eyes and sees clearly, nadia's concerned face hovers above him.

did he inhale too much water and die? that's the only explantion he has to offer. but his head is pounding and his throat and raw and wow, he's still drunk, and he doubts heaven would be like that.

"what are you doing here?" his voice feels like sandpaper. whoops.

she looks at him like he's a moron. "i told you i would." she pulls out her phone, and shows him her messages.

 

_to: Guzman [16:27 PM]_

_I can't make it to see you today, something happened with my brother._

 

_to Guzman [16:28 PM]_

_I'll come by tomorrow, I promise. I want to hear what you have to say._

 

they were timestamped for the day before. he'd blocked her number, so he never got them. god, he was an idiot.

"when you didn't come yesterday, i thought..." he trailed off, suddenly feeling like an idiot. nadia laughed incredulously, and leaned down to press her lips to his.

holy shit. he must be more drunk than he thought. there was no way this was real. when she leaned back, her eyes glistened. he reached up, and pushed away stray pieces of her hair that had escaped her soaked hijab.

"wow," he commented, awestruck. then, in the worst timing in history, his drunk and half drowned stomach heaved and he vomited the contents of his stomach onto the pooldeck. 

 

xiii. 

he wishes he could say all was well after that. but things in life are never as simple as that.

marina is still gone. his mother still cries in her sleep. his father never comes home, and he still spends every day waiting for her killer's trial, and for the other shoe to drop.

but he has nadia, now, and the change is palpable. when he gets overwhelmed, there is her hand in his. when he can't force the air into his lungs, there is her voice, urging him to slow down, guzmán, go easy on yourself. 

on the first day of fall holiday, he finds himself sitting outside marina's bedroom door, nadia pressed as close as she can go against his side. she's closer than lu ever was, somehow. he pushes the door open.

the room looks the same as the last day she left it. her bed is unmade, and when guzmán sits on it, pulling her pillow against his chest, it still smells like her shampoo.

he doesn't realize he is crying until nadia is in front of him, wiping his tears. and then he is crying harder, and harder, and she pulls him against her chest, whispering softly in his ear as he heaves sobs, the noise permeating the entire house. he is finally learning how to cry out loud.

"it's okay, guzmán," nadia promises, her voice shaking, "you're okay." and he loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic? shitty, but kudos and comments will help me feed my ten spanish children.
> 
> come be emo with me on my [twitter](twitter.com/softander)


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